Jerusalem envoy claims Pinoys more antisemitic
Israel Ambassador Ilan Fluss claimed on Friday that Filipinos, who proudly declare being “pro-Israel,” have become more “antisemitic” over the past 10 years, citing the Jewish organization Anti-Defamation League (ADL) based in New York.
Speaking at the celebration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day at the National Museum in Manila, Fluss claimed that 42 percent of Filipinos displayed “antisemitic attitudes” in 2024 from 3 percent in 2014.
“These figures are alarming, and we cannot simply watch as this hateful ideology spreads,” Fluss said, without saying if he has seen such “hateful ideology” in the Philippines, similar to those seen in Israeli media.
There was one big pro-Palestinian rally of an estimated 25,000 Filipinos in Muslim-dominated Cotabato City on October 2023, but that was to protest the destruction in the Gaza Strip.
In 2016, former President Rodrigo Duterte likened himself to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in killing millions of people,
“I’d be happy to slaughter them. At least if Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have (me),” Duterte then said in the context of the government’s war against drugs.
But in 1973, Duterte married Elizabeth Zimmerman, the mother of Vice President Sara Duterte, who claims to be a descendant one of the Jews who fled to the Philippines from Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
The ambassador did not specify what constituted “antisemitic attitudes” or did he provide details about the ADL’s latest Index of Antisemitism, which was not available online at press time.
He did mention that “antisemitic attitudes” have “skyrocketed” since the terrorist attacks of Islamist groups Hamas and Hezbollah on Oct. 7, 2023, when more than 1,000 Israelis were killed in a surprise attack.
Quoting the ADL Index, Fluss said antisemitism increased 360 percent in the United States, 733 percent in Canada, 433 percent in Australia, more than 400 percent in Europe and 442 percent in the United Kingdom.
At the National Museum, Fluss thanked Education Secretary Sonny Angarra for partnering with the embassy on the event to ensure the remembrance of the Holocaust, the systematic killing of European Jews by the Nazi Germans from 1941 to 1945 during World War II.
“Holocaust remembrance is not just about looking back: it is a commitment to confronting hatred, denial and distortion. The fight against antisemitism continues today, and we must be unwavering in our resolve to fight it. Including through education,” Fluss said.
